Update on Sick Rick

Disclaimer: I'm too tired to reread and edit this, so please just deal with any & don't judge!

Sick Rick is still in the ICU. Nurses got him out of bed & into a chair yesterday, but he began to swell again. He's still on Lasix (to pull fluid from the body), bp meds, oxygen (at a lesser concentration), antibiotics, etc. His bp and O-sat is better but only because of the meds.

Today Sick Rick is looking & feeling better (cracking his awful jokes again), but doctors want everything stabilized before they move him to the IMC - Intermediate Care Unit - which is a stepdown unit from the ICU. Doctors performed a kidney biopsy today and hope to get results to trickle in starting tomorrow. They are thinking there is a possibility that Sick Rick had strep and it grew into a staph infection. That would explain the fluid build up that caused the heart & kidney failure. We'll see, I guess. Thanks for the prayers for Sick Rick - keep 'em coming!

Please also keep my mom in your prayers. She's running between floors while working & checking on Rick (he's on the 3rd floor, her unit is on the 2nd), spending time at the hospital after work, and even went home late last night to decorate some for Christmas. Of course, she changed the air filters while she was up in the attic at midnight. ("Well, I figured I might as well change the while I was up there.") She had an echocardiogram scheduled for today & she cancelled. Nurse Kristin called to tell her that the echo WILL be done before the end of the week.

I'm tired of our family supporting the local hospital systems.